Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, United States
Frost’s early education was at home, his first experience of a formal classroom being at the age of eleven. He then received a Bachelor of Arts in 1886 and a Master of Arts at Dartmouth College in 1889. He also obtained his Doctor of Science in 1911.
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, United States
Frost’s early education was at home, his first experience of a formal classroom being at the age of eleven. He then received a Bachelor of Arts in 1886 and a Master of Arts at Dartmouth College in 1889. He also obtained his Doctor of Science in 1911.
Edwin Brant Frost was an American astronomer and editor. He was also professor at Dartmouth College and Yerkes Observatory.
Background
Edwin Frost was born on July 14, 1866, in Brattleboro, Vermont, United States. He was the son of Carlton P. and Eliza A. (DuBois) Frost. Frost spent most of his youth at Hanover, New Hampshire, where his father held a professorship in medicine at Dartmouth College and was later dean of the medical school.
Education
Frost’s early education was at home, his first experience of a formal classroom being at the age of eleven. He then received a Bachelor of Arts in 1886 and a Master of Arts at Dartmouth College in 1889. He also obtained his Doctor of Science in 1911.
After graduating from Dartmouth in 1886, Frost stayed there as instructor in physics and astronomy. In 1890 he left for two years’ study in Europe, and then again returned to Dartmouth as assistant professor in astronomy, being promoted to full professor in 1895. In 1898 he became professor of astrophysics at the new Yerkes Observatory, although he continued to spend part of his time teaching at Dartmouth until 1902. He succeeded Hale as director of the Yerkes Observatory in 1905, a position he held until 1932.
In 1915, while observing with the forty-inch telescope at Yerkes, his right retina became detached, and vision with this eye was completely lost within a year. A cataract developed in his left eye, and a hemorrhage occurred a few years later. Almost total blindness was only a minor inconvenience to him. If he had not been so afflicted, he would probably not have discovered that one can determine the temperature by counting the number of chirps of the snowy tree cricket (Oecanthus niveus) in thirteen seconds and adding forty-two.
It was during his stay at Potsdam that Frost became involved in stellar spectroscopy, and the appearance of the nova T Aurigae prompted him to obtain photographs of the spectrum of this and other stars. On returning to Dartmouth he published under the title A Treatise on Astronomical Spectroscopy a translation and revision of Scheiner’s Die Spectralanalyse der Gestirne. This was a standard text for many years. He made routine solar, cometary, and meteorological observations and participated in some of the first X-ray experiments outside Europe. He also made a qualitative study of the spectrum of Beta Lyrae in 1895. At the 1900 eclipse he obtained photographs of the flash spectrum and also of the spectrum of the corona. He secured spectrograms of Comet Morehouse 1908 III and nova DI Lacertae 1910. He edited the extensive series of solar observations by C. H. F. Peters and subsequently Barnard’s micrometric measurements of star clusters.
Frost’s principal research field, however, was stellar spectroscopy, specifically the determination of radial velocities of stars and especially stars of early spectral type. By 1895 radial velocities had been determined for only fifty stars. Soon after arriving at Yerkes, Frost designed for the forty-inch refractor the Bruce spectrograph. It is in no small measure due to the observations by Frost and his colleagues with this instrument that the number of stars whose radial velocities were known increased more than a hundredfold during the following forty years. Frost was the first to realize that there are systematic differences between the velocities of stars of different spectral types. He early recognized the need for calibrating the results obtained with different instruments and by a variety of methods. A natural outcome of radial velocity studies is the discovery of spectroscopic binaries. This is particularly true for stars of early spectral type, of which Frost found and determined the orbits of a considerable number.
Frost also served as an assistant editor of the Astrophysical Journal from its inception in 1895 and as an editor from 1902 until his death.
Frost was a member of the American Academy Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
In 1915 Frost lost the use of his right eye and in 1921, his left. Despite his blindness he continued working for eleven more years until his retirement.
Interests
Music and literature
Sport & Clubs
Golf, swimming, and ice skating
Connections
Frost married Mary E. Hazard on November 19, 1896. They had three children: Katharine Brant, Frederick Hazard, and Benjamin DuBois.